


prove it

by soggywormcircus



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Slow Dancing, Undercover Missions, both of them are super full of shit and i love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soggywormcircus/pseuds/soggywormcircus
Summary: 'Can you even dance,' he asks instead. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Nines' LED start spinning. When he answers, Gavin knows he is doing that tiny hint of a smile of his without having to look up.'I have the necessary skills to complete a mission such as this, Detective.' Then something shifts in his voice and Gavin can see that slight curl of Nines' lips that is his version of a shit-eating grin.'It's actually you I'm worried about.'
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 11
Kudos: 80





	prove it

**Author's Note:**

> every once in a while i do still think about these idiots

Even a few days after the briefing, Gavin isn’t done complaining. Every time he opens his mouth about it, Nines is looking at him with more exasperation and less fondness. Gavin keeps noticing. But he also keeps complaining. 

Maybe he’s just waiting to see how far he can take this. Maybe he’s wondering what it will take for Nines to lash out at him again, get tired of him. 

Maybe he’s just a little bitch. Whatever. It doesn’t work anyway. 

‘This is so fucking stupid,’ he groans on the third day, a couple of days before the actual mission is set to happen, ‘what’s the point in making us do this? Connor and Anderson would be much more believable anyway, everyone knows they spend all their nights doing secret slow-dancing.’

He looks up from his phone’s lockscreen just quickly enough to catch the subtle twitch of Nines’ lips. Gavin has to concentrate a lot to keep his own face neutral. 

‘If you had attended the last New Year’s celebration, you’d know that their slow-dancing is anything but secret.’

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ Gavin leans back in his chair, still refusing to get up to match Nines’ position. ‘We can’t all have nothing better to do.’ He neglects to mention that he spent New Year’s exactly the same way he has the last six years: at home with his cats. He can’t just leave them alone. They are terrified of fireworks. But Nines doesn’t need to fucking know that. 

‘You know exactly, as it has been explained to you countless of times, that Connor and the lieutenant are already busy enough. This is the first case we are assigned to this entire week. You said you wanted to have something to do. It seems to me you are perpetually dissatisfied purely out of principle at this point.' 

Gavin scoffs. He puts his phone aside and crosses his arms instead. He still isn't looking at Nines but he can feel the android's eyes on him.

Nines is right, of course. He's complaining just for the sake of it. 'Cause it's a somewhat comfortable alternative to fall back on. The other reason he is, as Nines put it, dissatisfied with this case is something he prefers not to say out loud. He's already in enough trouble as it is. 

'Can you even dance,' he asks instead. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Nines' LED start spinning. When he answers, Gavin knows he is doing that tiny hint of a smile of his without having to look up. 

'I have the necessary skills to complete a mission such as this, Detective.' Then something shifts in his voice and Gavin can _see_ that slight curl of Nines' lips that is his version of a shit-eating grin. 

'It's actually you I'm worried about.'

'Oh yeah?,' Gavin says, finally looking up. He's not grinning at Nines. Seriously. 'You are? I might not be a fucking gentleman or whatever, but every moron knows how to dance.' 

Nines raises one sceptical eyebrow. 'I suppose you of all people should know.'

'Fuck you,' Gavin says but there's no anger to it anymore. Nines' expression doesn't change.

'What, you seriously don't believe me?' Gavin feigns offense, clutches a hand to his chest. He probably looks like an idiot but for some reason, he doesn't really mind. 'How else is one supposed to pick up hot guys with a face like this?' 

Something odd happens, then. For the briefest second, Nines' LED flashes yellow, and his eyebrows furrow. It's over so quickly Gavin wonders if he's imagined it. 

'Still,' Nines says then, as if nothing happened, 'I'm inclined not to believe you.'

'Prick,' Gavin curses with a grin. He drops his phone onto the desk and sits up properly, giving Nines his undivided attention. 'I'm a fantastic dancer.' 

'Is that so?' Now Nines is smiling, not one of the subtle and careful smiles but a full grin. It looks a little sloppy, a little awkward, like he doesn't really know what he's doing.

It's fucking beautiful. And it's not fair. Like this, Gavin could probably let him get away with anything.

'Then prove it.'

Gavin blinks. 'What?' 

'Prove that you're capable of completing this mission.' 

'You want me to dance with you?' Gavin feels a familiar flush creeping up his neck. This is the exact opposite of what he wanted. 'What- here?' 

They're in the precinct. Granted, they are the only ones. Everyone else is out and about or already home. There is a big raid going on somewhere, or something. Gavin wasn't exactly listening. 

He was thinking about someo- something else.

Nines cocks his eyebrow again. 'Would you rather I rent out a ballroom for you, Detective?' 

'Shut up.' 

Gavin looks at him for a while, not saying anything. It's never easy to say no to Nines, especially when he probably should. 

Or definitely should. 

'You're serious about this?,' he asks dumbly, mostly just to stall. To his surprise, Nines actually shakes his head. Disappointment creeps up to Gavin, and taps him on the shoulder. He ignores it. 

'No,' Nines says, and his voice betrays him immediately. The disappointment evaporates and is replaced by… something else. 'Of course not.' He brushes some nonexistant dust from his stupid black turtleneck and turns to the side, eyes on his flawless fingernails. 

'Don't worry, Detective, I would never force you into the incriminating situation,' he turns back to Gavin and looks straight into his eyes, 'of embarassing yourself.' 

Gavin laughs out loud at that, and almost misses the stutter in Nines' LED. That's enough to push Gavin over the edge. Finally, he gets up from his chair.

‘You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?’ Nines nods dutifully, and very pleased with himself. ‘Yes, Detective,’ he says, ‘of course, Detective.’ 

Gavin rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah, we get it, you’re a smug asshole.’ He steps forward until he’s right in front of Nines. That’s when it comes back to his mind what a bad idea this is. 

He finds himself staring at Nines’ chest like a real idiot. It’s only when Nines’ hand settles on his hip that he’s brought back to reality. 

Well, realistically, this is obviously worse, because now Nines is touching him and he’s so close and he can tell _exactly_ what it does to Gavin. Even without the scans (which he promised not to use outside of emergencies) Gavin is an open fucking book. 

But at least this is a nice opportunity for Gavin to be a brat. 

‘Oh, hell no,’ he says. Nines frowns. He looks confused. It’s almost enough to make Gavin give in and just let him do whatever he wants. 

But not quite. 

‘No way,’ he says again. He takes Nines’ hand away from his hip and directs it to his shoulder instead. ‘No way you’re gonna lead. You’re like, what, two years old?’ 

‘I’m also capable of killing you in 70 different ways in the next three seconds,’ Nines says with that calm voice that’s supposed to be threatening. The one that just makes Gavin smile. 

‘Yeah, sure,’ he says. ‘I’m sure you can, but you’re not gonna lead. How else am I gonna prove that I’m actually good at this?’

Nines rolls his eyes, but he seems to decide to humor Gavin for the moment. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Go ahead, Detective.’ 

Gavin nods, gets ready, and hesitates. 'Okay, hang on,' he says. 'We're gonna need some fucking music for this.' He turns his head to see where his phone is, and jumps when a waltz suddenly starts playing from right in front of him. 

'Jesus fucking christ,' he curses. 'What the-' He looks at Nines. And his mouth falls open. 

'Are you playing this from your body?' 

Nines is looking impossibly smug. 

'Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me, Nines.' 

'You said we need music, Detective,' he says simply. 'This is the fastest way.' 

'W-' Gavin shakes his stupid head. 'Where is this even coming from?' 

Nines is just about to open his mouth to answer when Gavin interrupts him. 

'You know what?', he says. 'Nevermind. I don't think I want to know.' 

'Whatever you say, Detective.' 

Gavin looks at Nines' face and frowns. 'Don't look at me like that,' he snaps. Nines' eyebrows fly up. 

'Whatever do you mean?', he says with the most innocent voice in the world. 

'Like this,' he says, tries to gesture to Nines' face but forgets that his hand is still holding Nines' (oh god, he's _holding_ Nines' _hand_ ). 'I don't know. Smug. You can just say what you're thinking, prick.'

Nines smirks. 'Well,' he says, 'you know, Detective, if I didn't know better, I'd almost think you were-' 

'I am not. Stalling,' Gavin says with a trace of spite in his voice that makes him sound like he is eight fucking years old. 

‘Of course not,’ Nines says with an incredible and unfair patience. 

Gavin rolls his eyes. ‘Alright, let’s fucking go, then.’ He listens to the music until the right moment comes - and then they dance. 

Gavin wasn’t lying. He _can_ dance. (Tina taught him when they were at Police Academy, but there’s no reason for Nines to know that at all.)

The thing that makes this just a little fucking challenging is that he’s dancing with _Nines_ , of all people. 

Gavin keeps his eyes focused on Nines’ chest in order to avoid looking at his face. He’s not nervous, or anything like that. That would be really stupid. He’s just-

He’s just in love, okay? He’s got it real bad. 

Besides, he doesn’t need to be looking at Nines in order to know that he’s wearing the dumb tiny smile again just to fuck with Gavin. 

And it’s actually working out quite fine at the moment. No, seriously. Gavin isn’t losing his shit at all, and Nines is good enough at this, but in the way that he’s good at everything, which is with a sense of mechanical precision that Gavin can pretend he’s not in love with. He tries out a smirk. 

‘You’re not too bad at this,’ Gavin says. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Nines’ LED spinning, working on low effort to keep his steps in rhythmn and to not stumble. 

‘I was just about to say the same thing about you, Detective.’ 

Gavin laughs. ‘Yeah, sure,’ he says. ‘Surprise.’ 

He looks up. 

Yeah, yeah. He knows. Big mistake. That’s how he rolls. 

Nines is looking right back at him, his head tilted forward just a little. Gavin used to constantly complain about Nines looking down on him, with Nines responding that he’s not really giving him much of a choice due to his height, which didn’t exactly do much to calm Gavin down. 

He hasn’t thought about that in a long time, though. He’s mostly been busy giving Nines long and secret glances that he pretended Nines didn’t know happened. Or complaining to Tina when Nines wasn’t around about how stupid giving Nines long and secret glances felt. 

The look he’s giving Nines right now isn’t all that secret. It is pretty long though. And of course it’s embarrassing as fuck. 

Nines just smiles at Gavin’s stupid heart eyes the way he does; careful, clumsy, and incredibly beautiful. Gavin tries to look away. He really, really tries. 

‘Everything alright, Detective?’, Nines asks softly. Gavin blinks once, twice, and remembers were he is. 

Right. They’re… dancing. Gavin has Nines in his arms, because he’s a huge idiot that needed to prove he was good at something. 

Gavin clears his throat. Gavin rolls his shoulders. 

‘Yep,’ he says. ‘Of course. Everything’s peachy. What the hell makes you ask?’

‘Well,’ Nines says. Then, he pauses. Gavin isn’t sure why, and the pause is over quickly enough for Gavin to forget it immediately after. ‘For one, you’ve stopped.’ 

‘What are you talking about? I haven’t fucking-’

Oh. Huh. Well, that’s weird. They’re not moving anymore. 

‘I’ve stopped,’ Gavin says. ‘Well, would you fucking look at that.’ 

He clears his throat. And then clears his throat again.

From one second to the next, he becomes very aware of his hand holding Nines’. He looks at it, and wonders just how much of an open book he is to Nines in this moment. 

Gavin definitely can’t read anything in Nines’ face. He clears his throat again. And then he steps back. Just a tiny bit. To clear up his mind a little. 

Which doesn’t work. 

‘So,’ Gavin says, very carefully, worried that something he can’t tell Nines is going to come out of his mouth if he doesn’t watch it. ‘I think I’ve proven my point.’

Nines nods slowly. ‘I think you have, Detective.’ And then Nines lets go of him. Something ends just as quickly as it started. Gavin can’t really tell what it is. 

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Maybe next time you’ll think before you challenge me.’ He turns around and walks back to his desk. He doesn’t pull out his phone. 

‘It seems you’re equippted very well for this mission, Detective.’

‘Of course I am,’ Gavin says. Then, he finally grins again. He hates it, but it puts that tiny smile on Nines’ face that puts Gavin at ease. He kicks his feet up. 

‘Also, it’s Gavin.’ 

Nines blinks. ‘I’m sorry?’ 

‘Gavin,’ he repeats. ‘Forget the Detective, dude. If we’re gonna dance at a huge party together on an undercover mission you might as well call me by my name.’ 

‘Oh.’ Nines’ LED shows a tiny speck of yellow. Then, he smiles another one of his clumsy smiles. ‘That sounds nice. Gavin.’

Yep. Gavin is totally, royally, fucked. 

Right now, he doesn’t exactly mind.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!


End file.
